Samia returns today with a patient and plaintive cover of Liz Phair’s Exile In Guyville standout “Never Said.” When we first heard some of Samia’s early singles, the Phair influence wasn’t lost on us. Apparently we weren’t alone:

“Had the distinct privilege of meeting John Mellencamp when I was 14 and played him a few of my songs. He goes, ‘Liz Phair. You’re gonna be like Liz Phair,’” says Samia. “Listened to her music pretty exclusively for a few years after that. Haven’t had such a visceral and lasting reaction to anyone’s music since. The original version of this song is obviously untouchable so I wanted to try something completely different. You can probably hear her influence in my voice and songwriting so it would’ve been impossible to record an entirely new version of it, but we slowed that fucker down! Was a real honor to sing this song.” Samia is joined on the recording by friend and fellow NYC songwriter Raffaella on vocals, along with Quinn McGovern who produced the track, and her early 2019 collaboration with Active Bird Community

But that’s not it. Samia also created a lo-fi fever dream of a music video for the song, premiered today via FLOOD and available for your viewing pleasure above. The clip was put together with the help of her friends, actors Lucas Hedges and Fred Hechinger. According to Samia: “I was hanging out with my friends Fred and Lucas last month and we were filming ourselves doing ridiculous characters…I played them the ‘Never Said’ cover and this sort of just happened. We sent it over to Nick [D’Agostino] who sprinkled magic on it and voila!”

The release of “Never Said” comes a few short days after Samia opened for Soccer Mommy at Lincoln Calling Festival, and just before she headlines Samia + Friends at Brooklyn’s Our Wicked Lady on September 28. The Doc Martens mini-festival was curated by Samia herself and features performances from Active Bird Community, Daisy the Great, Nick Cianci, Pearla, Tarune, and a DJ set courtesy of Blu DeTiger. She’ll be keeping busy throughout the rest of the year as well, with an October run of dates with Remo Drive, followed by a November jaunt with Cold War Kids. Tickets on her artist page now.